Michel Platini has surrounded himself with fellow Frenchmen as he consolidates his grip on Uefa. Photograph: Claude Paris/AP

Uefa has undergone a reshuffle of senior staff that has led critics to express fears that the organisation has become French-dominated.

Uefa's president, the former France international Michel Platini, whose head of national associations, Pascal Torres, is a countryman, has given the go-ahead to an internal staffing review that has placed Frenchmen in six of his organisation's 10 most senior positions.

In a letter to broadcasters this month Uefa announced a promotion for Guy-Laurent Epstein following the creation of an arm's-length subsidiary, Uefa Events, that will be responsible for Uefa's commercial operations. Epstein will run the marketing and commercial side of the new body – including media rights sales – with the Swiss Martin Kallen heading up event operations including the European Championship. Under them Philippe Margraff, will run Euro 2012's commercial affairs.

Philippe Le Floc'h, previously one of Uefa's most powerful figures after a decade as head of marketing, has quit the organisation after his position was deleted. But another Frenchman, Alexander Fortoy, has received a big promotion from his role as head of new media to become the overall communications director; his French predecessor, William Gaillard, is Platini's special adviser. The Englishman Rob Faulkner, who had served in that role on an interim basis for a number of months, was overlooked.

Scotland's David Taylor has moved out of Uefa's Nyon headquarters after being replaced as general secretary by the Swiss Gianni Infantino. Taylor is now chief executive of Uefa Events, meaning Anglophone influence in the building rests with the newly appointed legal director, Alasdair Bell.

Some observers are interpreting this as Platini's moulding Uefa according to his own template ahead of a push to become Fifa's president.